Romney Disappears Past Statements on Health Care Reform

After the Republican presidential debate Thursday night, a senior advisor to Mitt Romney acknowledged that a line about spreading health care reform throughout the country was changed in the paperback version of Romney’s book No Apology.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said during the Florida debate that Romney took out the single line that suggested the Massachusetts health reform law could be applied to the country. The line that is removed in the paperback version reads, “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.”

And the punchline is that he lied about it during the last debate:

During the debate Romney denied that his book had been changed.

“I actually — I actually wrote my book, and in my book I said no such thing. What I said — actually, when I put my health care plan together — and I met with Dan Balz, for instance, of The Washington Post. He said, is this a plan that if you were president you would put on the nation, have the whole nation adopt it? I said, absolutely not. I said, this is a state plan for a state, it is not a national plan.”

Perry and Romney spent a good amount of time at the debate sparring over their respective books. Romney criticized Perry’s writings about Social Security.

“It’s fine for you to retreat from your own words in your own book, but please don’t try and make me retreat from the words that I wrote in my book. I stand by what I wrote. I believe in what I did. And I believe that the people of this country can read my book and see exactly what it is,” said Romney.

Unless, of course, you change the book after the fact to cover your tracks.

It’s amazing, they keep attacking one another over the one or two things I actually manage to agree with them with. It strikes me as an attack of the broken clocks. They’re right on one or two issues, but when their “friend” broken clocks see that they were right they shriek at them like the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and they reach over and yank the hand of the clock so that it goes to the eleventy-o’clock position instead of the “holy shit I was right about something” position.

Mr Ed

This is progress for the republicans, candidates that have read a book. The bible doesn’t count because they only read the parts that reinforce their preconceived notions ( and Song of Solomon for some reason).

Scott Hanley

If I thought they were reading for comprehension, instead of looking for sentences to cherry pick, I’d agree with Mr. Ed. But I’m afraid I don’t see as much progress.

It still amazes me that politicians lie about such easily-verified facts. Did Romney think that all hardback copies were suddenly going to disappear? Or did he really think no one would do enough opposition research to notice the change, so he never prepared a response? Maybe it’s Bill Clinton’s Disease: they’ve lost the ability to even imagine they won’t get away with it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=597316935 ashleybell

They’ve figured out that their contingency actually and truly does not give a damn about the truth. Also a valuable lesson they’ve learned is that the mainstream media, even ones that are accused of liberal bias, aren’t even going to call them on their BS. It’s a free ride either way….Nothing to lose.

http://www.themindisaterriblething.com shripathikamath

Wait, isn’t that what Mormons do? They change history books so that past embarrassments can simply be denied to have ever existed

Or did he really think no one would do enough opposition research to notice the change, so he never prepared a response? Maybe it’s Bill Clinton’s Disease: they’ve lost the ability to even imagine they won’t get away with it.

It’s Ronald Reagan’s Disease. Say it out loud and it becomes true; that’s how we know trees cause all the pollution, cutting taxes lowers the deficit, and Grover Cleveland Alexander was President. There’s nothing to get away with.

It’s all part of the idea prominent in the Republican party now: observed real world results do not matter; what matters is having basic principles that sound Right And True and can be stated succinctly enough for a good soundbite. Romney is against Big Government; therefore he wouldn’t call for expanding a statewide program to the national level. Therefore he didn’t.

In fact, if you’re against Big Government, none of the ideas you support could possibly make government bigger, be it state-sponsored religion or state-sponsored execution.

Reality check. It’s not in their platform.

sithrazer

This is another one of those things that makes me leery of digital books. Amazon has already proved they can alter the contents of your kindle whenever they want (by, ironically enough, deleting copies of George Orwell’s 1984). Not only could changes be made in between editions (I assume Romney’s was between the hardcover and paperback releases), but make edits to existing copies living on computers and e-readers.

PS:

I think Amazon also deleted copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, I’d have to dig up the article again to be sure.

Modusoperandi

sithrazer, lies! Those copies went Galt!

badandfierce

It’s a sign either that I’m underslept or that I’m a huge nerd that I read the title of the post a bit oddly. I got “disappears” as in invisibility cloak and read “past” as a preposition. I pictured him just vanishing from sight until all the health care statements had gone away. Actually, the mental image works very well.